


See You Next Summer (everything stays)

by hollycrowned



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe, Animal Death, Cigarettes, Gen, Songfic, Witchcraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:20:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollycrowned/pseuds/hollycrowned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The summer after "see you next summer," and many summers after that. Dipper hangs out at the Bill statue a little too much, but that's okay; it's just a rock, right? Gravity Falls is still a place where everything stays.</p>
            </blockquote>





	See You Next Summer (everything stays)

**Author's Note:**

> this is my thank-you to gravity falls, but not really a goodbye. i hope to continue creating fanworks for this series, even now that it's over.
> 
> this is the edited version with proper punctuation. the stylized version is up on my tumblr. there's also some easter eggs hidden in the various summers, just references to past episodes. the song is everything stays by rebecca sugar. a little cheesy, but i think this fic warrants cheesiness.
> 
> please, as always, feel free to let me know all your thoughts on this piece. writing this has shown me that i've really developed as a writer, even from a year ago, and i'm excited to share that. comments are always appreciated <3
> 
> edit 4/6/16: some minor edits made as i'm reviewing this fic in the hopes of writing a sequel.

Δ Δ Δ

**let's go in the garden / you'll find something waiting**

Next summer, Dipper and Mabel return to Gravity Falls. Sure, things are _different,_ Dipper thinks _—_ Stan and Ford are still out at sea, Gideon and Pacifica hang out at the Shack sometimes, McGucket has had to run the gnomes out of old Northwest mansion twice now—but Gravity Falls is still a small town where nothing changes. Everything is earth and pine and lilac skies, dusty light and spruce fires and peach soda.

They go on adventures in the woods, welcomed by the local wildlife. They explore the bowels of the crashed UFO. In Ford’s spirit, Dipper begins a field guide; Mabel does the illustrations. They fill the pages together, and every summer day is as golden as the last.

One afternoon, they stumble upon the statue. After only a year it’s already being claimed by the forest. Stray wildflowers grow at the base—blue chicory—and a line of tiny ants march down the side. There are even cracks here and there, patched with moss.

The same statue of Bill, wide eye, arm held out, hand open.

"Let’s go," says Mabel, tugging his wrist. Dipper glances back as the statue is swallowed by the trees again and thinks, how weird.

Bill used to really freak him out. But there is something distinctly unscary about the statue. Weird, but not _scary._ Dipper doesn’t know if it’s because of the flowers or the bird droppings on the outstretched hand or fact that it’s half-swallowed by the land.

He marks the statue’s spot on the fold-out map Mabel has drawn for the field guide, and writes a wise warning to any readers: Do Not Approach This Statue At Any Cost. Do Not Shake His Hand.

It’ll make Ford proud.

Dipper goes back to the statue one more time that summer. Freshly fourteen, it’s the day before he and Mabel will be going back to Piedmont. The visit is unplanned, but not unexpected. He’s said goodbye to almost everyone else in Gravity Falls already.

The old thing stares at him, arm extended expectantly.

Not scary.

"See you next summer," Dipper says, and turns away before he can think too much more about it.

Δ Δ Δ

**right there where you left it / lying upside down**

They return again, the next summer. They’re both much taller, and Mabel’s braces are gone. Dipper’s hair is getting long, and Mabel has cut hers short. High school has changed them in arbitrary ways, but—"still the same Pines twins _,"_ Wendy says as she pulls them into tight hugs.

Still the same Gravity Falls.

The same golden summer days. Like good habit, their adventures begin again. The woods are so familiar to them that half their days are spent checking on the local populations, recording what they find in the field guide. Staying on good terms with the creatures of the forest. 

On their rounds, they find themselves at the Bill statue again. It’s noon; Dipper jokingly suggests they should stop a picnic. He’s surprised when Mabel spreads out an old blanket and settles for lunch.

"Do you recognize us, Bill?" Mabel asks the statue genially, unwrapping her sandwich. "When we got off the bus, Lazy Susan said she could hardly tell who we were."

"I bet you haven’t changed at all," Dipper muses, and Bill really hasn’t. The statue is the same as he remembers it, save for the foliage around it. There’s no chicory this time, but Dipper spies a gopher hole at the base. Little toadstools crown the brim of the hat, where the moss is thick.

They sit and chat about their last year. What their first year of high school was like, how their father sprained his wrist on Christmas—"We call Stan and Ford every other week," Mabel says, "and we’ve gotten so many letters and pictures, I made a scrapbook just for them." The lemonade Abuelita sent with them is sweet and the warm sun feels good on their faces as the statue of Bill makes a soundless audience for their stories.

Mabel waves to the statue as they gather their things and resume their hike. "Bye, Bill. Thanks for listening to us blabber." In her usual Mabel fashion, she winks and points to him. "Don’t go changing on us, you hear?"

The statue, being only a statue, stares back, hand still gunning for a shake.

Weird, but not scary.

That summer, Dipper ventures out to the statue occasionally, on his own, to take advantage of the quiet of the woods, curled up on the old blanket with a book and the most silent of company. Sometimes, he finds himself talking aloud. There’s no one around to listen, but it feels good all the same; to be able to say something and to have it vanish in the air, to have no response, to have things simply be.

He thinks nothing of it when, the day before their bus ride back to Piedmont, he packs up his blanket and bag and says, "see you next summer, Bill."

Δ Δ Δ

**when you finally find it / you'll see how it's faded**

Dipper wades through grass grown past his ankles to get to the statue again. He sits down and folds his legs like they were taught in grade school—criss-cross, apple-sauce—and sighs.

The early afternoon is warm and clear, a gentle breeze rustles the trees. The sunlight that filters through the canopy dapples the grove in constantly changing glimmers. A mayfly lands on Bill’s thumb soundlessly, stretching it’s wings.

"We’re helping Wendy move to Portland in a couple of days," Dipper tells Bill, but doesn’t look at him. He looks at the small hole at the knee of his jeans instead. "I'm really happy for her. I can tell she really wants to go. She’s really excited. I don’t know. I haven’t been this sad in a while."

He’s met with silence. It gives him the courage to keep going, because he can tell by the feeling in his throat that he’s not done.

"I don’t get it," he says, "I should be happy, right? For her. I am. But I’m sad too, because—because—I don’t know if we’ll get to see her again next summer, or the summer after that—and it sucks. I’ve put on a good face up until now, but it’s tomorrow and—it just really, really sucks."

He draws himself up until he can loop his arms around his legs and rest his forehead on his knees. He can’t even see Bill, but he’s still talking.

"—and I’ve talked to Mabel about it, she’s really positive and reassuring but it’s hard for me to be that all the time, I just need a minute to be upset and then I’ll be okay, but I don’t want to ruin this for Wendy and it just _sucks_ , so much—"

He talks and talks. He meant for this to be just about missing Wendy, but more spills out: other things he’s taken for granted, other things he hasn’t learned yet, other people he misses. Frustrations and anxieties. His fingers tear at the grass near his feet.

He keeps talking until there’s no more lump in his throat. He waits for his breathing to even out and for the pounding in his head to ebb away. Then he scrubs his face with his sleeve and leaves the grove, red-faced, too embarrassed to look back.

-

It’s raining. Wendy’s in Portland and Dipper is here, standing in front of the Bill statue with an umbrella and a bag, feeling distinctly foolish.

"Sorry for unloading all that stuff on you," he says sheepishly. He feels the statue staring but can’t bring himself to look up. "And you can’t even talk back. I mean, I guess it’s a fitting punishment for all the stuff you’ve pulled…"

He shakes his head, and puts down what he’s brought: a can of soda, a box holding a slice of the birthday cake Abuelita baked for them, and a sachet full of bird’s bones, deadnettle, and rabbit fur. It’ll all be snatched up by any one of the creatures living in the woods, but Dipper thinks it’s the thought that counts, in this case.

"Thanks, though, I guess,"he says. "Getting that stuff off my chest really helped."

He stands there until his shoes and socks are soaked through. Unconsciously, he’s holding the umbrella over the statue.

"See you next summer."

He leaves the umbrella, too.

Δ Δ Δ

**the underside is lighter / when you turn it around**

Bill probably isn’t really in there, Dipper figures. He thinks it’s more like a shed snakeskin, just a hollow shell left behind; an empty vessel. The statue is only that—a statue. It’s not Bill frozen in place. It’s just a rock that looks like Bill, that Bill left behind.

All the same, Dipper thinks Bill might be able to hear him, and see him too, somehow.

Summer in Gravity Falls is quiet without Wendy. Dipper and Mabel still hike through the forest, always adding to the field guides—they’ve begun their second volume. They have help from Candy and Grenda, and even Pacifica and Gideon. "Remember when we hated each other?" Mabel laughs, and everyone laughs with her. "That was such a long time ago."

Days are filled with forest walks, mini-golf, picnics; fireworks and water balloon fights and milkshakes from Greasy’s. Nights become card games, karaoke, lake shore strolls in bright moonlight. Summer in Gravity Falls is quiet without Wendy, but no less golden.

Dipper finds an old crank radio in the Shack and takes it out to the Bill statue, soft music in the background while he writes in the field guide, or reads, or just chats. Soon, tall grass is worn away into a path, one Dipper knows by heart.

It’s the most mellow summer he’s ever had, a calm before the coming storm that will be his final year of high school. Days float by in a honeyed haze. Dipper wakes up from another nap in front of the Bill statue and finds it’s time to return to Piedmont, with August and seventeen years behind him.

He lies on the blanket and stares at the trees towering above him, in the pink frosting of the early evening. The radio hums familiar pop tunes next to him. That old feeling is starting to rise in his chest and throat, the one that re-appears at the end of every achingly good summer, when the final day turns to rosy evening. Usually, it’s easy to swallow, as he reminds himself that this place will wait for them to return. That it will stay rosy and golden.

He does swallow it, bittersweet. He packs his bag and as leaves the grove, he lets his fingers brush the top of Bill’s hat, murmuring what he’s always said before.

"See you next summer."

Δ Δ Δ

**everything stays / right where you left it**

No one visits the statue next summer.

Down in the town, people mention how strangely quiet the season is without the Pines twins. In the forest, the gnomes ask the unicorns. "Have you seen those kids around? Neither have I, neither have I."

It rains. The Shack creaks. The storm fades and the grass grows. The statue stays, and summer passes.

Δ Δ Δ

**everything stays / but it still changes**

The path into the grove is still familiar to Dipper, although it has grown over since his last trek to see the statue. The branches hang lower—or maybe he’s gotten that much taller—raveled in light spider webs, leaves lush and green as ever. He has to push them aside as he makes his way to the statue of Bill, which is so green with moss it blends into the tall ferns around it.

"There you are," Dipper is relieved. "For a second there I thought you’d gotten up and walked away while I was—"

He stops talking, because something is different.

Bill’s not listening, or at least not looking, because the statue’s eye is closed.

-

Dipper returns to the grove with Mabel. A salamander scurries around the brim of Bill’s hat when they approach, to hide in the cool shadow beyond.

"My point is, his eye was open before, and it’s closed now," Dipper is saying.

"I know, but what’s the big deal? Bill is doing weird Bill stuff. Seems normal to me. Oh…"

They stop before the statue. Mabel puts her hands on her hips.

"Maybe he’s mad that you didn’t come around last summer since we were in Europe," she suggests. "You said you promised to come back next summer, and you broke your promise, so…"

"It’s a rock, Mabel."

"But you still hang out here and talk like someone’s listening."

Dipper doesn’t want to answer, so he stares fixedly on the statue instead.

"Hey," Mabel prompts him, elbowing his side. Her voice is mirthful. "Maybe he’s winking at you, huh?"

_-_

Dipper tries to do what he did before. Chat amiably, listen to the radio, work on the field guide, talk to himself. He drags Mabel back out again for a picnic with lemonade and sandwiches, complete with an exchange of stories about their last year. When that doesn’t work, he goes out alone on a rainy day and says _everything,_ hides nothing, and leaves gifts behind: sachets, bundles, snacks, sodas. Money.

Nothing.

He pretends he’s not desperate the day he brings a book— _Gravity’s Rainbow,_ because he thinks Bill would like it and because he has to read it for a class anyway—and tries to read it aloud. He doesn’t love the story but he reads with gusto to the very end. Blabbers on about what he thought about the book, what he liked and what he didn’t, what they might discuss in his class….

Bill’s eye stays stubbornly shut.

Dipper sighs and puts the book aside, collapsing on the blanket. Dappled sunlight dances behind his eyelids; overhead, meadowlarks and wrens trill the day away. Maybe it shouldn’t matter that Bill won’t look at him. _M_ _aybe it shouldn’t,_ Dipper thinks, _but it does._ The pit in his gut tells him he’s broken a rule. Summer is half over, and he doesn’t know what to do to fix it.

The music on the radio fades long enough for the host to huff: they’re dead center in one of Oregon’s hottest summers yet.

-

The grove is red and Dipper needs to get back to the Shack, but he’s rooted to the spot. Bugs bite at his elbows and neck; it’s hot, hotter than it’s ever been even though the sun is sinking fast behind the trees. Dipper’s shirt sticks to his back and sweat runs down his face and he really should get to the Shack for a shower and a meal, to sleep before the long drive back to Piedmont tomorrow, but he’s been staring at Bill for twenty minutes now and he can’t look away.

The words are on his lips like they have been at the end of nearly every dying summer. It is time, again, to speak them; the sun won’t set, the summer won’t end until he chooses: say them, or don’t. He stares at the statue that doesn’t stare back.

He has never shaken the proffered hand, but the words are a promise enough. He utters them in apology, with sincerity, before he turns away to start down the winding path back to the Shack. With every step, the last of August dissolves, beams of red shuttered out by black.

He thinks he feels a gaze on his back but he won’t turn around. Won’t jinx it.

"See you next summer."

Δ Δ Δ

**ever so slightly / daily and nightly**

Dipper unpacks the old blanket from his bag and spreads it out on the grass. The morning is still dewy, cool and damp. This part of the grove is shaded enough by trees that the spot is dark and grey-blue, not yet turned by sunlight. Dipper draws his jacket around him a little tighter.

Bill stares back at him. Hand out, expecting.

"This might be a little earthy for your taste," Dipper prefaces, settling on the blanket and opening his bag. "But I picked everything out myself. It took me a while to figure out what to do here, so I’m sorry if I mess up."

Three candles, black, purple, and a slightly larger pink. He lights each of them, arranging them at the base of the statue in a triangle, with pink at the apex. In the center, he places a terracotta dish, in which he deposits three gold dollar coins and nine stones of chalcedony.

He pulls out the worn copy of _G_ _ravity’s Rainbow_ and tears out the final page. Shreds it with his fingers and adds it to the dish. On top, a sprig of dried rue.

Next, he lights the contents of the dish with the black candle, replacing it as the paper catches. The shreds and the rue burn, leaving the coins and the chalcedony behind.

He’ll leave the dish there while the candles burn down, but until then, he pulls out the final contents of his pack: two cups, two small plates, a bottle of sparkling peach juice, and two brownies.

"A few of my professors offered me internships for this summer," Dipper says conversationally as he distributes the food. "My advisor really tried to get me to take one. Apparently I need to fill up my resume more. And I need to start looking into graduate schools already. Can you believe that?"

He pauses long enough to peer up at Bill. The eye is still open. Dipper takes a bite of brownie to hide his grin, chewing thoughtfully.

"I told them no, though. Just to the internships. I haven’t decided about grad school yet. I think Ford really wants me to go. I guess I have the grades for it, too. But I don’t know. What would I do?"

He eats the other brownie and drinks the other cup of juice ("Sorry I couldn’t get wine. Maybe next year. And I know a brownie isn’t precious livestock, but I think it goes better with peach juice."). By now, shafts of light are beginning to shine through the trees and warm the earth. A sheet of fog rises, cool on Dipper’s face. He props his head on one knee, watching the sparse candlelight fade against the sunbeams. It’s almost time to go.

"Now that we have the car, I was thinking Mabel and I should take a roadtrip around the state sometime this summer," he murmurs, brushing the grass with his fingertips. Clarkia, this year. "It would be nice to expand the field guides. She’s using the illustrations as part of her portfolio, I think she listed them as children’s fantasy. It’s funny..."

The purple and black candles slowly burn themselves out. Dipper picks up the pink candle to drip hot wax on the coins and the chalcedony, then blows that flame out, too. The wax cools as he packs up the empty juice bottle and utensils. Finally the candles and the dish. Lastly, the blanket.

"We haven’t decided about the roadtrip yet, so I'll see you tomorrow," Dipper says, hoisting his backpack over his shoulders. "Don’t worry. I know I haven’t gotten off that easily."

-

True to his word, Dipper does see Bill the next day. And every day after that, interrupted only for the couple of weeks he and Mabel take for the road trip. When they return, Dipper has plenty of notes to turn into field guide pages. He resumes his daily visits, occasionally joined by Mabel.

"He’s better,"she says approvingly the first time she walks to the grove with him. "I was right, wasn’t I? Balance has been restored to nature," her voice goes deep and eloquent, a perfect imitation of Ford. It breaks when she laughs as Dipper gives her a playful shove, holding her drying field guide page out of reach.

The final day comes, evening falls. Dipper brings Bill another brownie and a cup of peach juice for good measure. The old blanket is scratchy from having been washed too many times. A familiar ache rises in his chest and throat.

The woods are rosy again.

"See you next summer, Bill. I promise."

Δ Δ Δ

**in little ways**

By August the next year, there is considerable wear done to the grass in front of the statue from how many times Dipper has laid out the old blanket and settled down to read or to nap. Each day is indistinguishable from the days before. The season slides from blue day to pink evening to purple night, until everything from color to time is a single blur.

"I think Melody and Soos are planning something big for our birthday," Dipper tells Bill one afternoon, after waking up from another snooze. The crank radio sings pop-party tunes about summer. "Since we’re turning twenty-one. We said nothing too wild, but I think it fell on deaf ears."

He laughs and stretches, joints popping. "You’re not invited, but I'm sure you’ll be on everyone’s minds. There hasn’t been a town-wide get together since the last one you hosted."

-

‘Fell on deaf ears,’ Dipper feels, was an understatement.

Soos and Melody decorate the Shack and invite the entire town. Wendy drives all the way from Portland with cases and cases of handcrafted Oregon beer, in recomposed carriers stamped ‘Northwest Passage.’ A surprise arrives late to the party: Stan and Ford, laden with presents. Stan hugs them gruffly, hiding proud tears as he presses bottles of whiskey into their hands; Ford’s smile is crooked and gentle with new crows feet at the corners of his eyes.

There’s blaring music, wild dancing, enthusiastic hugs and gift-giving. The rest of Gravity Falls must be deserted, because everyone is at the Shack, partying. Toby comments, hiccuping through a glass of ale, that the town hasn’t been this excited about something since the last soiree at Northwest mansion.

Dipper wanders away from the party long enough to stumble down the worn-out path to Bill. He’s got two bottles of Northwest Passage and a mind to share, but when he reaches statue he’s stopped short.

Someone has made it to the statue before him. Several someones. They’re young kids, maybe early high school, laughing sluggishly and smoking cigarettes. One of them has a roll of toilet paper they’re winding around Bill’s hat, one is looping glow stick bracelets around the wrist, one is shaking a can of spray paint. One is unzipping their jeans—

Dipper shouts, louder than he intended, because the kids all leap up in alarm. Dipper shouts some more, and the kids start to scatter. Reflexively, he runs at them for a few steps but stumbles over a root; one of the beer bottles flies from his hand and shatters.

By the time he rights himself, the kids are gone. Highly irritated, Dipper turns his attention to Bill, tearing down the offensive material, throwing aside plastic beaded necklaces and bath tissue; underneath, the mossy patches have been uprooted, the ferns trampled. Discarded cigarette butts lay everywhere; a crushed-out stub is jammed into Bill’s palm. Dipper brushes it away.

The action makes him pause.

He hasn’t actually ever been this close to Bill before. The rock is more weathered than he realized. The lines are less defined, and there are no sharp angles. Deeper crags run in rivulets over the surface. When he drags a hand down one side, dust comes away with it.

All Dipper can hear are the sounds of the party behind him, but he kind of can’t focus on anything else but Bill right now.

"You’re gonna wear down one day," he says without thinking. He collapses heavily in front of Bill. "You’ll be just a hunk of rock and I won’t be able to tell if you’re looking at me or not. I bet your hat’ll fall off, too," he continues. "And your arm. Someone better shake your hand before that happens, or no more deals for you."

Or maybe, he thinks suddenly, Bill will be like the Moai heads. Those things have been around for years and they still have faces.

He says so to Bill, as he retrieves the unopened beer and pries the cap off. "And I’m sorry I dropped your beer," he adds. "Probably wouldn’t be a good idea to leave it anyway. I don’t need the gnomes getting their hands on any of this stuff…"

Before he drinks, he pours some out over the statue. He’s glad he sat back down, because the world is tottering way too much. It takes him until halfway through the bottle to remember what he came down here to tell Bill in the first place.

"Mabel and I are going to Portland tomorrow. Wendy invited us to spend the last couple of weeks of summer with her. So I gotta say goodbye early this year—hope you’re not mad."

He doesn’t get the feeling Bill is mad.

Suddenly he hears his name called from somewhere behind him; Mabel is looking for him. He stands up clumsily, laughing as he tries to make his way back up the path. When he looks back, Bill is still watching, hand outstretched like he’s waving.

"See you next summer," Dipper says, waving back.

-

The next morning, Dipper’s phone dings out it’s usual alarm. He fumbles to pick it up, blurry from hangover, but his hand knocks into something else. A bottle of Northwest Passage, whole and full, still sealed.

Δ Δ Δ

**when everything stays**

"I bet you thought I’d forgotten about you again, huh?"

It’s among the final days of August. His offerings are admittedly better this year: a cured rabbit, bought from a hunter in town, wrapped in butcher’s paper. Real peach wine. A sachet of gold coins, graveyard dirt, deer teeth, and forget-me-nots. Three tea candles, all white.

Bill watches him as he lights the last candle, hand held out.

"A lot happened this year," Dipper reports as he spreads the old blanket out on the grass. "Mabel and I graduated. I helped her move into her own apartment in LA last month. We drove out to Sacramento to help a friend get rid of a tiyanak.

"Stan and Ford bought a property in Florida," Dipper tells him. "Apparently there’s a lot of latent paranormal activity in the Everglades. They invited me to move out there with them. Ford said he’d love the help. It would be nice. I’ve thought about doing an encyclopedia. And they’re not as young as they were, you know. They could use some family nearby."

He knows he’s dodging the point. The words are in his throat, but they’re stuck. Reluctant.

"Isn’t it weird?" he wonders. Not looking at Bill. "Way back then, Mabel was the one who didn’t want to leave.

"I can’t stay here," he admits quietly, finally. "I think I’ve known that for a long time. All those summers we came back here, I think I always knew we wouldn’t be able to keep it up forever."

"You probably knew it too. Didn’t you? That’s why you’re looking at me now, even though I showed up late this year. You knew I’d be late—" he realizes, suddenly, "—and you know I'm not staying for long."

Finally he looks at Bill. Eye still open. He takes a deep breath.

"I don’t know when I'll be back. But I won’t stay away forever, alright? I can promise that."

He packs up the blanket and leaves the offerings. Before he leaves the grove, he pauses to look at Bill, one last time. The statue is the same as always, mossy rock cradled by ferns, shaded by the towering trees above. Hand held out. Dipper tries to memorize the way this place looks, here and now, how it will stay. There's no  _next summer_ to rely on.

There's only—

Dipper lets his fingers brush Bill's open hand as he turns away.

"See you someday, Bill."

-

Dipper’s chest tightens as he watches the water tower pass. The old feeling rises to his throat, bittersweet, but he swallows it. His hands flip through the first field guide, so he pays mind to that instead as the bus pulls down the county road. Away from Gravity Falls.

"I think you’re right," he says quietly to Mabel, her head heavy on his shoulder. "The field guides might make good kids books. We’d have to clean them up and rearrange things, but I think we could make it work."

"Mm," Mabel hums in agreement, already dozing.

Leafing through the pages, he stops when one of Mabel’s illustrations catches his eyes. It’s the page about the statue. The little recount of what the statue is lists down the page in thirteen-year-old Dipper’s handwriting. The illustration shows the statue in mid-day light, surrounded by blue chicory. Moss patches the cracks in the rock and a marching line of ants trails down the side. At the bottom of the page: Do Not Approach This Statue At Any Cost. Do Not Shake His Hand.

Dipper closes the field guide. He adjusts slightly to sit more comfortably on the bus seat, careful not to wake Mabel, closing his eyes for a nap to pass the hours it will take to get back to Piedmont. _Well_ , he thinks. _The woods are still rosy. After so many years, this place is still golden._

He falls asleep, and dreams of triangles.


End file.
